The Butcher Shoppe EP

Album review

Della Mae spent much of the back half the 2010s on hiatus, but their 2019 comeback EP The Butcher Shoppe finds the quartet re-introducing themselves with gusto. The Butcher Shoppe opens with the lively "Bourbon Hound," an original written by Celia Woodsmith that starts the EP off at a fast clip that's sustained by the uproarious "No-See-Um-Stomp," the two numbers emphasizing the bluegrass group's dexterous interplay. Perhaps the tempo slows a bit for a cover of Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons," but even that slow blues swings with a swagger that emphasizes how Della Mae is back with a vigor. That impression is buttressed by how the originals are all uptempo and muscular, and how the two covers -- the second being a bold interpretation of the Allman Brothers Band's "Whipping Post" -- are delivered with an assurance that telegraphs that Della Mae have no doubt they can stamp these familiar tunes with their own personality. Which they do, creating cover versions that wind up illuminating the originals, since they're both connected by imagination and precision, a combination that is exhilarating throughout The Butcher Shoppe.

© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo